Catching Mello
by Beautiful Taboo
Summary: There were happy times, carefree times, times when it seemed like the world stopped spinning and everything around us seemed unimportant. But it's not like that anymore. MattxMello


All disclaimers apply.

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**Catching Mello**

by Beautiful Taboo

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_You should have asked me for it_

_I would have been brave_

_You should have asked me for it_

_How could I say no?_

_And our love could have soared_

_Over playgrounds and rooftops_

_Now every park bench screams your name_

_I kept your tie_

_I'd have gone wherever you wanted_

- I Still Remember by Bloc Party

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**I.**

It wasn't always like this, you know.

There were happy times, carefree times, times when it seemed like the world stopped spinning and everything around us seemed unimportant. There were times when we could still laugh, especially those times when we make fun of Near or Roger or somebody else. There were times when we could still sleep together, huddled inside one blanket, with him telling me ghost stories until I cried from fright or me telling him funny ones even though he never laughs.

But it's not like that anymore.

He glances down at me as he came up to the second floor – me sitting on the ground, PSP in hand, a small bag beside me, right in front of his apartment room. I am happy to see him again, and I don't know what to do. Should I hug him? Should I tell him that I missed him? Should I start to explain?

Instead, I look up and I meet his eyes. "Welcome home," I say simply and he opens his door. I follow him inside, waiting for him to say 'I'm back' but he doesn't, so I keep quiet.

He gestures towards the small, dingy cupboard in the corner of the room. "Coffee's there," he tells me, before he disappears into his bathroom. I go over to his messy cupboard and I begin to look for coffee. No coffee there, only powdered chocolate milk, cobwebs and some rat droppings. I get the chocolate milk and make a mental note of clearing out the droppings and I take out two mugs from his dispenser. I wonder if they are clean, so I run water over them quickly.

When he comes out, I have the hot chocolate waiting for us.

He doesn't smile. He just sits there and stares at me as he drinks his chocolate. I don't know what to do next. I want to turn on my PSP and just play, but I can't move my hands. I stare back.

"So," he begins. "Why are you here?"

Finally. A question. I nod slowly, trying to remember the words I practiced earlier, when I was waiting for him. Somehow, I forget the words.

"L's dead, isn't he," I say, with it coming more like a sentence.

He doesn't stop with his chocolate, and he doesn't blink. "Roger told you?"

I grin. "I tapped his phone. Then I snuck out." I take a sip from my mug.

"That old idiot." He looks away and I notice that he is wearing new clothes. It seems weird not to notice it the first time I saw him, but my mind was full of other things back then. He cradles his chin on one leather-gloved hand and glances at me from the corner of his eye. "How'd you find me?"

I shrug. I had no idea, either. I tell him that I just went around, asking for him. There weren't too many people going around with that kind of haircut, anyway. I was lucky that I landed here. Pure luck.

"I'm with the mafia," he tells me simply, as if it was something I didn't have to know. "I'm out often." I look around the room and I see that it shows. He stands up, and goes over to the sink to wash the mug. So he washes them after all.

I nod. Out of nowhere, I blurt out, "How are you?"

He glances at me and says, "Okay." And he looks back at the faucet.

I sit quietly, holding my mug tightly. The mug is warm. It feels nice.

"Matt," he suddenly says. I look up to him at once, waiting for him to return my words or ask me something else. He places the mug in the dispenser and looks back at me. "I'll sleep on the couch tonight."

My throat tightens up and I don't say anything.

**II.**

I don't see him around during the day, and he comes back once it's dark outside. He doesn't tell me where he goes. When I wake up, he's gone, and I don't ask him where to. I tried to follow him once, but he was too fast. After a week, I gave up and just stayed at home, playing video games.

He's always like that. Running, disappearing to somewhere when I turn my back on him for a minute. Then when I catch a glimpse of him, I try to catch up. But he runs so fast, like he wants to go somewhere… running and running to that place. I can do nothing else but follow. Sometimes, I trip over rocks or I tangle my feet by mistake and I wonder why he never falls, but I stand up all the time. Just to catch him. Just to keep him within my sight. I follow him because I have no special place I want to go to besides the one where he wants to be.

Now that he's gone often, it's like I am alone again. There are times when I wonder why I even tried to look for him in the first place or why I keep looking for him, but when he comes home, I forget about everything. It's okay with me being alone for a few hours, as long as I know that he would come home sooner or later.

**III.**

"Pack your things," he says suddenly.

I look up from my new Final Fantasy game. Just a few more minutes and it would be my second time finishing it. But I don't care about that anymore – I don't even care why we need to move. I stand up and gather our things, hoping to God that the wound on his face wasn't fatal.

That night, we move to a bigger apartment, much nicer than the old one. A lot of big windows covered in Venetian blinds. Carpeted floor. An actual bedroom. I unpack all of our things as he sat on the couch, looking like he was in a daze. I wait for him to tell me what happened, but he doesn't. I keep quiet and do my job.

"I need your help."

I look up from our socks and I realize that I haven't taken off my goggles since we left. I pull it down with me and stare at him expectantly.

He looks at me, and I see that half of his face is really badly burned. He holds up an old shirt to put pressure on it. I bite my lips to keep myself from telling him off and I say nothing.

He tells me our plan – I was to watch a man named Aizawa, supposedly having ties with Kira. And I need to tap all their phones and hack into their laptops. I nod absently, and I keep staring at his face. He begins talking about his plan. _Go to the hospital!_ I want to scream, but I just shrug and I go back to sorting our socks.

**IV.**

His wound is healed. Now, there's just a scar that runs through half of his face. His hairstyle changed, too. He says that we'd start our plan soon, that's why he needs to go undercover. It seems that some of the police from Japan's Investigation Force saw his face.

He moves out of the apartment, saying that he was going to watch someone named Misa Amane, who used to be the second Kira. We only talk over a phone.

I take out a cigarette and I light it. Smoking seems to calm me down, especially when I'm worrying about how it's going over at his post. I keep playing my PSP, not knowing what was happening, hearing _pikapikapika_ over and over as I punch the buttons…

Suddenly, the phone rings. I take it absentmindedly, completely absorbed by the game.

"Matt, how are you doing?" he asks. From his tone, I figure that he wasn't doing so well.

"Bored out of my mind!" I tell him, and I run over what I've seen for the past few hours. Hearing his voice makes me happy. I try my best to convince him to let me be with him – but I try to do so as subtly as I can. Nothing is happening here, after all. I don't want to waste my time. "Anyway, it's too boring to keep watching something that has no movement," I continue. Please, please let me go there! Please ask me if I want to be there!

I push on a button hard and a big 'CONGRATULATIONS!' enters the screen. I smile to myself as I press the restart button.

"Don't complain," he says and he goes on, and by then, I know that it's impossible for me to go over there and help. I offer to change jobs and he says no. I turn off the phone and stare at the PSP screen. My character just fell into a hole and he died.

I don't want to play anymore.

**V.**

One day, he tells me to stop watching them. He has a new plan.

He always has new plans.

He tells me the gist of it, and from what I'm hearing, I know that our survival is less than 3 percent. I don't try to talk him out of it – he looks so enthusiastic about it. He can find who Kira is and defeat him faster than Near, he says. But deep inside, I know that we were thinking about the same thing. I sigh. He has his winning expression on his face, and I don't have the heart to take it away.

His plan would've been perfect.

I just grin at him and tell him that the plan is good. I don't say anything else. He smirks and I smirk back.

"Congratulations," I tell him, and I go over to the bed. I am tired. I want to sleep. I want to forget about everything for a little while. I want to forget about his plan. Maybe I can even dream about earlier days. I lay on the bed quietly, and I hear him shuffling around. I always get the bed and he sleeps on the couch.

To my surprise, he climbs next to me and he lays there, staring at the ceiling, unblinking. I do the same.

"3 percent…" he mumbles. He looks at me and I just stare at the ceiling. "Did you get that, too, Matt?"

I nod quietly.

Suddenly, I hover my face over his and I kiss him. Softly. I run my index finger on the edge of his scar and I kiss him again. This time, longer. I stop and stare at him, straight into his eyes. He says nothing and I go to sleep.

**VI.**

"Good luck," I say as I lock the door of the car. I grip the driving wheel and smile at him. "Today's the day, huh?" I light the cigarette in my mouth. The taste of tobacco calms my nerves. I take a deep breath.

He finishes his bar of chocolate and he places the wrapper into his leather jacket's pocket. "Yeah," he mumbles, licking the chocolate stain on his leather gloves.

Five more minutes.

I look at him and he is adjusting his helmet.

_I'll miss you. I don't want you to go._

I want to say those words, but I can't. I still can't. Random words come tumbling out of my mouth. "There was no coffee," I tell him, and he looks at me. I grin, mentally kicking myself. "There was never any coffee." Here we are. About to die. And that's all I can say.

Surprisingly, he smiles. It's the first time he smiled at me like that. He nods and says, "Fuck coffee," and he puts his helmet on.

I see that he's crying. I can see. But he doesn't want me to comfort him, and he doesn't want me to see him crying. So I pretend not to. My chest tightens up and my heart hurts, but I stare straight ahead. I try to think about coffee, and chocolate milk, and Mello.

I grip the wheel tighter.

Mello. Mello. Mello.

Ask me now, Mello! I want to shout. I stare at him the hardest that I could – I stare and stare, hoping that he'll say something. Ask me what I feel about this, Mello! Ask me if I want you to die! I pound on the wheel and I bite my lower lip, trying hard not to scream at him and push him out of his goddamn motorcycle.

But Mello didn't say anything.

One more minute.

I think of crying. No tears come out.

The traffic light turns orange.

I start my engine and I took one last glance at Mello.

All my memories begin playing over my mind.

The way we played, the way he used to fuss whenever Near got a better grade, the way he would talk about L even though he hadn't even seen him, the way we ran when Roger caught us playing pranks on the other kids. I remember the way he looked when Roger called him and Near into his office, the way he refused to talk about it and the way he kissed my forehead before he left while I pretended to be asleep.

I close my eyes, trying to remember more about that. I should have opened my eyes that night. I shouldn't have let him go.

Mello is running away from me again. This time, I see where he wants to go. It's a cliff… he's running towards it quickly, fastly. I don't know if I should move. Why does he want to fall? I'm scared. I'm fucking scared of dying. I'm scared of falling and bashing my head on the rocks below. I'm scared of losing Mello.

As I look at him on his bike as he speed away from me, I cry. The tears that won't come out before are pouring like crazy.

Was I going to let him go again?

I start my engine and brace myself.

_Not this time, Mel,_ I say to myself as I take out the smoke bomb from the seat next to me. Cliff or no cliff – I don't care anymore. _I'm coming with you this time._

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**Fin.**

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**A/N: **I know, sappy, sappy, but thank you for reading and if it isn't too much to ask, please leave a review before you go! -bows- By the way, does anyone know where I can get Volume 14 onwards of Lovely Complex? ToT


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